What in God's name has the EULA been reduced to

[mr moose]

This should be illegal. 

Under Australian law a case can be made that it is illegal, if you pay for a product then that product is yours,  If the product is the rights to hold and use digital software, then the company cannot just revoke those rights it would also have to issue a full refund as the product is no longer fit for it's intended purpose. 

[nicehat]

Under Australian law a case can be made that it is illegal, if you pay for a product then that product is yours,  If the product is the rights to hold and use digital software, then the company cannot just revoke those rights it would also have to issue a full refund as the product is no longer fit for it's intended purpose. 

 

But in Australia you probably dont have your law makers eating out of the hands of corporate sponsored lawyers and lobbyists :wacko:  

[mr moose]

But in Australia you probably dont have your law makers eating out of the hands of corporate sponsored lawyers and lobbyists :wacko:  

almost, but not yet. It is getting close with IP and copyright laws (because we are the good lapdog for the American corporates).

[TheProfosist]

Games are software so you only ever own a license to play and maybe use them nothing more. This has been this way for a really long time.

[Darren]

But in Australia you probably dont have your law makers eating out of the hands of corporate sponsored lawyers and lobbyists :wacko:  

 

Yep, they just get ripped off with every software ever. Do we need to bring up the whole "an Australian can fly to America, buy a copy and fly back, and it'll be cheaper than purchasing it in Aussie" (or something like that anyway).

 

Related to the topic, this is pretty normal. Not really anything new...

[Fred Castellum]

This doesn't surprise me one bit, they've had it like this for a while now. 

[Rassilon]

"non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited

these are standard but

"fully revocable"

this one is bullshit. I would like too see them take down the game I paid money for from my account. Let's see if they survive as a company after that.

Doesn't steam do that all the time?

[Almercenary]

I think a lot of it is more to cover there asses if some shit pops up, rather than the intent to revoke it. There would be way to much uproar

[dragosudeki]

 

- snip -

 

Isn't that what all games on Steam are? They are just licenses and if Steam goes down that means bye to all your games because none of them were actually yours as they were just licensed to you.

[StingBull]

Why? It makes perfect sense if you actually thought about it.

 

How is "fully revocable" bullshit? They cant keep the servers up forever. They cant support the product forever. They cant continue to develop patches and content forever. Use some common sense.

 

 

 

By sharing it on Steam you are not transfering the licence. It is licenced to your steam account, not a computer or single person.

 

Of course it's bullshit, let me count the ways.

 

1. Total War is not an online game. They do not need any servers. The server's required for the game to be downloaded is something else entirely and has nothin to do with this contract. Even if they do shut down those servers your licence should still be valid, there is no reason for cancellation. Imagine if Microsoft cancelled your Windows licence because they've decided to not sell it anymore.

 

2. Using this right they have they can pretty much take the game away from you 5 minutes after you paid for it.

 

3. Indeffinite licence is not a thing in anywhere else why should we accept this for software? You don't rent a house then the owner kicks you out 3 days later because he feels like it.

 

Use your common sense, think how this bullshit affects the consumer.

 

The publisher uses the EULA to protect themselves.

 

From what? Those people who paid 60 dollars to play a game and then get fucked over. Publishers do not use EULAs to protect themselves, they use them to break the law, evade responsibility and profit more.

[StingBull]

Doesn't steam do that all the time?

 

When I said standard I wasn't approving of it. It's widely used so it's a standard. I wasn't thinking just Steam, the last one isn't as pervasive. They are all bullshit.

[Guest]

Sega! Soanik za hedgehog dum dum dum duh dum duh duh duh dum

[Guest]

All games have stuff like this, don't rant at sega if things that s bad read a call of dutys games

[Dac]

Lets be realistic. No one reads the EULA much less enforces the dumb bits seriously otherwise the cattle wouldn't pay and click 'I agree' blindly (yes I'm including me in that statement).

http://www.computerworlduk.com/in-depth/it-business/3335703/the-worst-excesses-of-end-user-licence-agreements/

 

Moar reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license_agreement#Enforceability

 

It's all up there with bullshit agreements that 'The Man' uses to control the world around us. Everything from irritating mobile phone contracts, bullshit data tariffs for home broadband to silly clauses in EULA's. Personally I think any EULA that's longer than 10 sentences should be banned citing cumbersome wordiness as a defence against breaching them. Everything has pretty much been sown up to own the populace for a very very long time.

 

Besides if BigCorp did decide to reel in their creative produce and commit Seppuku there's always the weapons of resistance - Piracy/opensouce or just plain not buying their crap.

[dragosudeki]

- snip -

Please don't hate on Total War because you just noticed it with them as everyone is still doing this.

Most likely it probably will last forever unless it is an online-based game. Look at what Steam did with 'Order Of War: Challenge'. It is old as hell and lost support for its online service (which it solely depends on). Therefore Steam removed that license as there was no point and a lot of people blamed Steam (probably regardless of whether they actually played in which case they probably haven't even touch the game). There has been no other game where the license has been revoked from a huge amount of people and this was for a very good reason.

If I'm also not mistaken, most software have the same type of agreement (Don't quote me on this though). I'm pretty sure some account registration (on online games and maybe forums like this) have the same idea. They are allowing you to use/play their IP. If they catch you doing stuff to it like selling and making profit off of their IP then they should be able to revoke it from you (and sue you too but that is different that the agreement). Again you bring a lot of very harsh unrealistic situations of where this agreement may be abused, but no company is dumb enough to do it.

[tobben]

Sure, but in this case, you only get to read/sign the contract AFTER you pay the entire year of rent upfront and in cash. Bullshit!

steam is pretty much exactly the same thing just so you know.